” The Beige Book is a report published eight times a year that details the economic activity in the 12 different Federal Reserve regions. As this most recent report explains, “Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.”

” Yet economists caution that claims could get whipsawed again, as they often do, if Washington proceeds with a so-called sequester that requires the federal government to cut as much as $85 billion in spending in the next six months. That could result in workers being temporarily furloughed or laid off, making them eligible for jobless benefits.

The monthly average of jobless claims, a more accurate number that smooths out weekly volatility, rose by 8,000 to 360,750. That’s the highest level since the first week of January

” The world is not overpopulated and never will be. The world has been able to support larger and larger populations do to the division of labor and specialization of trade. If markets were freed up and people were allowed to engage in peaceful activities without restrictions, we would all be richer and better off. “

Whether it’s Illinois and Caterpillar , New York and Remington or California and the Space Industry the “blue state” model is unraveling .

” In the last decade, the town has
become a hotbed of aerospace innovation. XCOR is just one of several companies pushing the envelope not just of performance, but also of cost effectiveness in spaceflight. This is because of the town’s favorable flying weather
and access to the large, restricted airspace just to the south at Edwards Air Force Base and
NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. Its proximity to Los Angeles, with its remaining technological infrastructure, has been invaluable
as well, not to mention the culture, and the variety of southern California geography and scenery. From beaches to desert to mountains, L.A. is an attractive vicinity for employees. West Texas, in contrast, is hundreds of miles from any major urban center and farther still from any ocean.

What Texas offers, though, beyond the direct financial incentives, is a much more business-friendly and employee-friendly environment. Even people with modest salaries pay almost ten
percent of their salaries in California income tax. In Texas, that rate will go to zero. In California, Proposition 65 requires warning signage for every fluid on site, with fines for failure to post
— just one more burden on a company that.builds and operates rocket-powered vehicles. When California’s idiotic new carbon trading law comes into effect this year, the company is going to have to start tracking every gallon of
fuel it burns and report it to the state. No one in Texas will care. “

This John Hawkins piece just happens to open with a “Quote of the Day ” post of mine from the other day . No great significance there , just my musing . Anyway , the point of the article ( well made ) is to verbalize the reasons that inevitably betray the left’s economic policies and doom them to failure .
We who subscribe to a more ” original intent ” type of philosophy in matters of import most likely find Hawkins’ truths to be self-evident . At risk of preaching to the choir , I recommend his post as a concise yet thorough primer to fall back on the next time you are innundated with the usual “we just need to spend more ” litany from your more progressive friends . The aforementioned mantra is , as we know “the solution to all ills” to the progressive mind .

PS: To be fair I must take slight issue with Mr. Hawkins on item #6 . The way I see it , the Right side of the aisle , with scant few exceptions , has been just as eager to regulate us into an early grave us the progressive left .

“There’s a reason it took the country so long to pull out of the Great Depression under FDR, why Americans became acquainted with the Misery Index under Carter, and why we’ve had the weakest economic recovery from a recession in U.S. history under Obama. Liberal economic policies just don’t work. In fact, the only time left-wingers have taken charge in the last 40 years without decimating the economy was during the Clinton years when Republicans in Congress balanced the budget and spent 6 years strong-arming Clinton to keep him from molesting the economy like one of his interns. This is no coincidence; it’s a natural consequence of the errant liberal view of economics.

1) Keynesian stimulus doesn’t work. As Walter Williams has pointed out, the whole idea of revving up the economy via a government stimulus is doomed from the start.

…Where does Congress get the resources for the spending? Well, there is no Tooth Fairy and there is no Santa Claus. So, the only way Congress can get one dollar to spend is to take that one dollar from Americans, borrow that one dollar from Americans, or inflate that one dollar from Americans.